EUGENIO VIASSA MONTEIRO
I was considering some facts regarding IT (In formation Technology) in India and its pioneering companies. These companies achieve a level of production today commensurate that is with their size. The IT sector employs more than 5.95 million pro fessionals, and as of March 31, 2026, the four pioneering companies employed: TCS, 585,000 specialists (founded in 1968); INFOSYS: 329,000 (created in 1981); Wipro, 242,000 (estab lished in 1980); and HCL, 227,000 (inception in 1976). The services sector, par ticularly Information Tech nology and digital ecosys tems, contributed $421.3 billion to global exports of goods and services, which totalled $863.11 billion in Fiscal Year 2025/26. IT alone generated production of around $283 billion in 24/25, with exports of $224 billion. About 53% of IT exports go to the US, with the remainder going to the EU, Japan, and other countries. This gives an idea of its quality and re liability. In the late 1990s and ear ly 2000s, GCCs (Global Ca pability Centres) emerged, belonging to multinational companies that began estab lishing themselves in India. They didn’t come for cost ar bitrage, but in search of spe cialists who could help de vise strategies for the parent company’s entry into digital isation, AI, cloud computing, robotics, and other advanced fields. They were looking for IT-savvy talent who could guide work for the entire company, based at their GCC in India. Currently, there are more than 2,117 GCCs installed (some with more than one sub-centre). A recent statistic indicated that GCC exports were projected to reach $164 billion in FY 2025/26, a 2.4 fold increase over 6 years ago.
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In FY 2024/25, they had reached $153 billion. Anoth er 500 GCCs from companies that have not yet established centres in India are expected. This gives an idea of India’s position regarding IT and its most advanced applications. Jobs in the GGC sector have almost doubled to 4.2 million, with earnings per employee up 24%, indicating a shift to wards higher-value services. The telecommunications sector was insignificant in India until the year 2000. It has grown fast to reach over 1.32 million active mobile lines today, with 1.27 million subscribers, and nearly 47.9 million ground-line sub scribers. In space exploration, India stands out for the low cost and high Technology of its missions. The Indian space agency, ISRO, pioneered land ing on the moon’s south pole. India is a global leader in satellite launches. By 2026, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had launched over 430 satellites for 34 countries, along with 130 national satellites.
It sent a probe with high precision to enter Mars’ orbit about a year later, at its first attempt, which was a success. The total cost of the launch was $74 million, a very low amount for a launch of this type compared to the US. A North American newspaper commented that even the production of the film “Grav ity” had cost more than $100 million. Nuclear technology: India has an installed nuclear pow er capacity of 8,880 MW (8.88 GW). This capacity comes from 25 operating reactors, in addition to a 500 MW ex perimental fast breeder reac tor that recently reached its first criticality. Where does all of India’s technological prowess come from, which has allowed it to go so far? Beyond the signifi cant personal effort required to meet the objectives set by the companies they work for, it’s worth remembering that, starting in 1960, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru created several high ly selective higher education institutions focused on tech nology and other sciences (management, healthcare, etc.), attracting a high-qual ity student body. These in stitutions include the follow ing:- IIT (23): Indian Institute of Technology; initially eight in 1960 and, today, 23;- IIM (21): Indian Institute of Management; initially six in 1960 and, today, 21;- AIIMS (20): All India In stitute of Medical Sciences, serving as a model for the medical colleges (which now number 823 in total, with 136,940 seats).
More medical colleges, both public and private, are being created to meet the needs of the country and for emigration to destinations, such as the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Aus tralia. To illustrate, in a recent year, approximately 1.5 mil lion candidates competed for the 23 IITs, which had a total of 18,826 seats. In an initial screening, a shortlist of 250,000 was prepared, who then took a selection test, from which the high est-ranked were chosen. One can imagine the great determination of the admit ted students to work intelli gently, diligently, and orderly to learn and perform their duties competently. Perhaps, due to the training they un derwent during the selection process, they end up being very good. Many of those who did not get in also possess high skills and preparation; I would say that, in many cas es, they are at the same level as those who were admitted. India enjoys a great repu tation for having Indians who studied in India serving as CEOs of more than 25 large US technology companies, proving highly successful in their current roles within these multinational corpora tions. Highly selective higher ed ucation has effects at other levels, such as the feverish activity of creating startups. Ten years ago, India had few er than 500 startups. But to day, thanks to many facilitat ing provisions for obtaining seed capital, expanding, and reducing the costs of register ing invention patents, India has made a huge leap.
Conse quently, India has become the third-largest startup country, with over 159,000 recog nised startups (as of January 2025). It has more than 135 unicorns (companies valued at more than $1 billion, as of early 2025). Driven by the Startup India initiative, the ecosystem incorporated 23 unicorns in 2022, raising the total valuation of its unicorns to around $350 billion. I have briefly outlined tech nologies in which India, glob ally, has invested and that have given it great advantag es. Technology attracts a lot of attention, and this sector should continue to perform well with extensive and in tensive R&D, and also inten sive one, so that India may remain at the forefront of technological advancements and continue to create jobs for many of its engineers and technicians. Every year, more than 1.5 million engineers graduate from engineering colleges in India, and they deserve high levels of employment in tech nology companies with re markable achievements that will continue to stand out.
For me, much more impor tant than technology – which is very impactful on any in tellectually prepared mind – is the food security that In dia has already achieved and cannot slow down, to contin ue feeding its entire popula tion. In a future article, I will discuss how a continuous line of progress has led India to foster remarkable growth in food production, with many incremental innova tions resulting in small leaps in productivity. Also, bold disruptive innovations that generate significant leaps in landowners’ incomes are al ready very frequent. (The author is professor at the AESE-Business School in Lisbon and at I.I.M. Rohtak in India and the au thor of The Rise of India)
